Public broadcasting's ombudsman whacks Juan Williams re: Fox News

And this was before Williams' most recent, and dreadful, backstop appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, where he defended the host's wild and violent anti-abortion rhetoric and compared today's abortion crusaders with non-violent civil rights protesters from the 1950's.

I admire Mr. Williams for his scholarly writing and his reporting on NPR. Fox News president Roger Ailes knows he is exploiting the credibility that Mr. Williams has built at NPR and carries with him to Fox. I wonder if Williams ever thinks that he is squandering a measure of that credibility by his continued appearances with Bill O'Reilly.

BTW, in the same column Bode, critiquing a recent PBS "NOW" program, was also quite clear about what he sees as O'Reilly's role in the assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller:

Overall, the ["NOW"] program was strong and convincing on this point: radical, anti-abortion opponents, including Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, are guilty of promoting domestic terrorism. They always deny that their rhetoric promotes and condones the violence directed at doctors who are performing services protected under the law. However, little question remains from the reporting on "NOW" that they are guilty of inspiring the murderous outcomes they encourage.

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EricBoehlert
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A Senior Fellow for Media Matters, Boehlert is the author of Bloggers On the Bus: How The Internet Changes Politics and the Press, and Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush. Previously, he wrote on staff for Salon and Rolling Stone.

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